As soon as she spoke, a certain flavor of individuality seemed to return to her speech.
"Confess," she said, "it was a courageous thing for me to do.

You might have been somebody else--a real Excellency--or heaven knows what! Or, what is worse in your new magnificence, you might have forgotten one of your oldest, most humble, but faithful subjects." She drew back and made him a mock ceremonious curtsy, that even in its charming exaggeration suggested to Paul, however, that she had already made it somewhere seriously.
"But what does it all mean ?" he asked, smiling, feeling not only his doubts and uneasiness vanish, but even the years of separation melt away in her presence.

"I know I went to bed last night a very humble individual, and yet I seem to awaken this morning a very exalted personage.

Am I really Commander of the Faithful, or am I dreaming?
Might I trouble you, as my predecessor Abou Hassan did Sweetlips, to bite my little finger ?" "Do you mean to say you have not seen the 'Auzeiger ?'" she returned, taking a small German printed sheet from the table and pointing to a paragraph.

Paul took the paper.